Good Evening from Laie, Hawaii … April 17, 2016

Greetings from a very blustery and chilly Sunday evening in Laie. For the first time in couple of weeks we have an evening free with no other missionary obligations and we’re happy to have the brief respite. Sister Smith is across the street visiting with another senior missionary couple who are serving their mission at the Laie Hawaii Temple. Elder and Sister Fry flew over on the same airplane with us about fourteen months ago. They’re serving for eighteen months and will be returning home in the summer.

The work being done to increase the number of people who take advantage of the tram tour from the Polynesian Cultural Center to the Temple Visitors’ Center during the afternoon and evening is really starting to pay off. Sister Smith and I have been several evenings now over at the Polynesian Cultural Center handling the tram logistics. There’s really only space for one tram vehicle at a time to be in position to take on passengers. We have two trams (30-seat open-air busses) and one 25-passenger bus available for transporting people (I went looking through my pictures and realized I don’t have any pictures of the trams! I do have one picture (attached) from the inside of a tram, though. That might give you an idea of what they look like from a rider’s perspective). So, while the sister missionaries are recruiting people to take the tram, Sister Smith and I handle getting the trams loaded, jockeyed into position, and staffed with the right sister missionaries so the tram can leave on time headed to the Visitors’ Center. It’s only the last three tram times, 6pm, 6:20pm, and 6:40pm, where this coordination is needed. The earlier tours rarely need more than one tram and the sister missionaries can handle them.

However, around 6pm most folks that are not going to a luau for dinner have finished eating at either Island Buffet or Prime Dining and many are interested in taking the tram tour as they have an hour and a half before the night show starts and all of the other displays are closed for the evening. About 6:20pm the two luaus finish and another 400 – 600 people come along, many of whom are interested in taking the tram tour. So the area around where the tour starts gets very hectic. People are streaming through in three directions and out of that people are lining up to get on a tram or bus, the vehicles are coming and going, and time just flies by while we’re there.

Each tram can carry thirty people and the bus can take 25 people, so between 6pm and 7pm about 250 people potentially can go over to the Visitors’ Center. Consequently, we need all available sister missionaries at the Visitors’ Center to meet and greet the visitors from the PCC, escort them around the center and the grounds, and get them back on the tram/bus fifteen minutes later.

Unfortunately, even with two trams and the bus, we sometimes have more people who want to take the tour at 6:40pm than we have space. Last night (Saturday) we had to turn away more than 50 people, some of whom were quite disappointed. There is an older tram that was take out of service and used for parts, so the Church’s Missionary Department has authorized refurbishing that vehicle and getting it back in service (it takes at least 18 months to build a new tram, fixing the old one is cheaper and much faster). But even with that tram, we would still have disappointed people. So, obviously, we have more work to do!

There are some adjustments for us senior missionaries to make. One couple is on duty at the Visitors’ Center each evening; the other two are not there. So we take turns doing the tram logistics at the PCC. The schedule is starting to settle down, but it means at least two evenings each week we need to be at the PCC. Our schedules have become quite a bit busier! Busy is goodness!

We had visitors from Thatcher, Idaho this week. Their dad worked for Uncle Ross at the Calcite operation and they knew Uncle Ross and Aunt Leone quite well. It was delightful to visit with them for a few minutes. The visitor counts from Europe are growing again and since the dollar is currently rather weak against the Euro, I think we’ll see more visitors from Europe this year. They are always very friendly and interested in learning a bit about the Temple. Saturday we also had visitors from Yemen, the first that I remember from that middle-eastern country. They were here for a five-day conference. We visited with them at the PCC and put them on a tram tour over to the Temple and hopefully they had a good experience. The last two tram schedules offload when they return to the PCC in a different place than where people board the trams, then come over to where the boarding process happens, so we didn’t get to see them when they returned back to the PCC.

This week is transfers. Yesterday (Saturday) evening we all gathered at 8:15pm in the big theater at the Visitors’ Center for “Transfer News”. That’s when any changes in companionships and living quarters are revealed. The actual change happens this coming Wednesday. This transfer one sister from Taiwan is finishing her mission and headed home. We get a new sister from Korea. Two sister missionaries are returning from their three-month full-field missionary assignments and three sister missionaries are going out for their three-month full-field assignment. The sister missionaries are called for eighteen months at the Visitors’ Center, three months of which, at the Mission President’s discretion, can be spent somewhere in the mission as a full-time proselyting missionary, then they come back to the Visitors’ Center to complete their mission. We call this three-month assignment a “full-field” assignment. There is special missionary vocabulary for just about everything….

Our shift schedule changes as well. For the next six weeks we’ll be at the Visitors’ Center Monday – Wednesday from 9am to 2:30pm. We’ll have Thursday as our Preparation Day and then be at the Center on Friday and Saturday afternoons from 2:30pm – 8pm. We’ll also spend two evenings a week at the PCC handling tram logistics and will spend one afternoon a week at the PCC taking tickets at one of the luaus or dinner buffets. Our Sunday schedule stays the same: 8am – 11am at Church in the Laie 3rd Ward, 11:30am – 4pm at the Visitors’ Center, and then a fireside on the 2nd and 4th Sundays, We’ll also go to Family Home Evening on Monday evenings, and Break the Fast on the first Sunday evening of the month. In addition to all of that we have our weekly Visitors’ Center Training Meeting on Monday mornings from 7:30am – 9am, a senior missionary coordination meeting on Tuesday evening from 8pm – 9pm, and a Friday morning Walk and Talk activity with all the Visitors’ Center missionaries from 6:30am – 7:00am. We are indeed quite busy!

And with that, I’m finished for the week! Our taxes are filed, we’re both quite tired, and we’re both quite happy with being here on a mission. Good evening from Laie!

Tram Tour Bus
Tram Tour Bus

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